Good week of visits, eating some really spicy soup and worms!!!

Hola familia! So today we came to a new area (Tula in the zone of Tula) for p-day to tour around a little bit, go to some markets and buy some food and stuff for the week while we are serving in Jasso. This past week was good. Last Monday after p-day we had a lesson with Jimena, her mom and grandpa where we talked about the 10 commandments and ways to try to help her remember them. We were hoping to have her baptismal interview today and baptize her on the 28^th, but more on that later.

On Tuesday we had our district meeting and we talked about the importance of verifying the commitments we ask people to do. There’s a million things we can invite them to do but when we verify, we can have a short visit with them and stay in touch, call them, write on sticky notes, etc. to help them remember. It was really good. Our district has 6 missionaries and we each gave two minute talks about the section on keeping commitments in Preach My Gospel. I also ate some super spicy soup that I could feel destroying my insides as I was eating it. The sister who gave it to us even added two heaping spoonfuls of sour cream, but it was still so hot!!

Wednesday, Elder Donkersgoed and his companion came to our casa to study with us and see what they can do to help us focus more on the mission, plan more effectively and use our time more wisely. Elder Donkersgoed is one of my best friends here on the mission, I just love him. Later in the afternoon we went to visit a member named Joel, who is living with a woman named Maria. She has three kids and is pregnant with twins. She is not a member but she is living with Joel. The lesson was pretty rough. We found out that they want to get married but she is not divorced from her previous husband… (So there’s more to figure out with them).

Thursday we had our weekly planning, we actually got to have it this week which was really good. Later we went with a member to look at past investigators, less active members, friends or references that the investigators had. Not all the people answered but we still have their addresses so we can go visit with them another time. Also we were supposed to have a lesson with Jimena but we weren’t able to meet with her.

On Friday we went by Jimena’s and dropped off some pamphlets of what we wanted to talk about and rescheduled a lesson for Saturday morning. Then we went and had a lesson with Maria who is the mother of Sochilt. We are still trying to help her figure out what she wants and needs to do so she can get baptized. We also had a lesson with an investigator that we haven’t been able to get with until now. She told us she’s been stressed out a lot but we told her she can find peace and strength by praying, reading her scriptures and coming to church. Hopefully that helps her.

On Saturday we got a call from Jenny, Jimena’s mom, who told us that her dad came and picked them up without permission and took them to his house so we couldn’t have a lesson with her. So now we have to push her baptism date out :(. Then we had a lesson with our neighbors, well really Isabel as her husband was busy. They have a son on a mission and since he’s been on a mission, they’ve been changing a lot. We also had a lesson with Patty and her son. She’s been a member for a few years but she has some concerns about baptisms for the dead. (She thought you literally take dead bodies to the temple and baptize them.) So we had to explain how baptisms for the dead work, why we do them, why we have temples and the spirit world. We hope that she finally understands. 

On Sunday we had a stake conference. Our stake center is about 45 minutes away. Then we went and ate barbacoa, tacos and soup with the familia of Hernando Cruz. Later we had another lesson with Maria and talked with her and her boyfriend and a bunch of kids, nieces and nephews and it was a good lesson this time. Joel and Maria are going to try and stay together and work through things which is good. 

That’s about it. I hope you guys are doing well. Love you!

P.S. Haha yes I did eat worms. I wanted to eat it at least once here on my mission and now I can say that I have! I don’t want to eat it again though. I’ve been told the worms are expensive to get but yes they do eat those and friggin’ grasshoppers, snails, and some other crazy stuff!

Me and Elder Donkersgoed

Great Zone Conference, Another Gas Leak and Mexico Independence Day

Hola Mama! Como estas? This past week was good. On Tuesday we had a family home evening with a recent convert and her family. It was really awesome. We talked about the Articles of Faith one by one, what they mean, it was really good. I encourage you to read them if you haven’t for a while. Read the Articles of Faith, study them and think about them!

On Wednesday we had intercambios with Elder Juares and Elder Donkersgoed in their area. I went with Elder Juares. We went to one lesson and it was super awesome. At the end of it, Elder Juares invited the hermana to be baptized and she accepted. We also passed by a member family who has two kids who are recent converts. We talked with them about prayer and the importance of prayer. That was awesome and they are super friendly.

Thursday we had a zone conference so we slept in the casa of Elder Donkersgoed. We had to go to the zone Atotonilco, and it was that zone and our zone, which is Tula, combined for the conference. The part I really liked was the “law of the harvest.” They talked about how if we want to baptize, if we want to harvest the fruit, we need to plant the seeds, find more investigators, find chosen investigators of God who wish to grow. We need to teach them and nourish the seed until it’s ready to be harvested. Lately, I’ve been thinking about baptizing people, not in a bad way, but I realize I need to focus more on finding people and planting the seeds so whether I stay in the area, or for those who come after me, I can nourish the seeds that have been planted. It’s all on the Lord’s timing. I hope that makes sense. It was an awesome zone conference. 

When we got back to the DL's house from the zone conference it was about 9:30 at night. We asked if we could stay there but President said we needed to get back to our area. There is no public transportation at that time so we tried to call members to see if someone could come get us. We found someone but shortly after that we got a call from another member saying there was another gas leak in our area. We were told that if we weren’t already, we needed to evacuate again. So we didn’t end up going back to our area after all, we stayed the night again.

Friday after we got back to our area we went to go see the mom of Sochilt. She is really nice and has a big desire to be baptized. She’s wanted to be baptized since she was a teenager. She is an awesome woman, the only problem is she is not married with the man she is living with. To be baptized, if you are living with someone you either have to get separated or get married and they don’t want to do either so it makes it a hard situation. But we are going to keep working with her and we invited her to pray and read the Book of Mormon so she can figure out what she needs to do to progress and be baptized.

Saturday we had a lesson with Jimena and we taught her about the Word of Wisdom. It was a really good lesson, she participated more and talked more with us. We hoped that she would come to church on Sunday. The 16^th is Mexican Independence Day, but for some reason they decided to celebrate on the 15^th (Saturday) so we had to be back to our casa by 6 p.m. for our safety. Anyway, after lunch we went and visited a member who is living with a non-member. The non-member really has a desire to talk to the missionaries and progress and join the church. It was a super humbling experience to talk with them. They are very poor. They don’t have a lot of clothes. They don’t have shoes for their kids who are 11, 9 and 3. We don’t know all of their circumstances but we are going to see what we can do to help them. Before we went to see them, we ate lunch with some members who gave us some fruit, so we gave the fruit we had to this hermana. We also talked to the bishop and the ward council on Sunday morning to see what we could do to help them.

We are slowly more and more starting to understand our area. On Sunday after church we went to one part of our area and we had a bunch of appointments scheduled with contacts to go and visit them and hopefully make them into investigators but that didn’t happen. A lot of them weren’t home. One place that we went to, this guy told us that the other guy wasn’t home and he was going to scold him because he told us we could come. They are catholics and don’t want to change their religion and he told us to please leave the area or he would call the police. We just continued to contact and found some new contacts.

Well that was my week last week. This week we don’t have to leave the area so we should be able to find a few more contacts and investigators. Things are going good here. I hope things are going good for you. Te amo mucho! I hope you have a great week and a great day! Feliz Cumpleaños!! in advance!

Having pizza to celebrate Independence Day!

Busy Week with Lots of Traveling and Walking

Buenas días mi familia. This last week was really good. On Tuesday, we weren’t in our area a lot because I had to go to the offices, which is like 2-3 hours from here. Once we got to the office, I went with the other two American Elders I arrived with and the office secretaries to the district of Mexico City to renew our visas and that took a while. After we were done with that, they took us out to eat at Carl’s Jr and it was so good! My stomach really didn’t handle that very good the next day though…

Wednesday we had to go have some sort of contact, whether through phone or talking in person, with our investigators that have a baptismal date. We don’t have the phone numbers of all of them so we had to go walk and find them. They live in all different parts of the area so we had to walk a lot, find and talk with them and verify their baptismal days. That took most of the day on Wednesday. 

Thursday morning was awful. About 4:45 in the morning our neighbors started blasting music, Bob Marley and some other rock songs. It was like the speaker was right next to our door. They played music until about 5:30 / 6:00 a.m. it was awful. But the good part of the day was when we went to celebrate the fact that we met our baptismal standard or goal the previous transfer. We got to go to the President’s house and eat carne asada. So we traveled to the offices and met the missionaries there from the past zone. We then went to the President’s house and played games, ate a lot of really good stuff, and had cake to celebrate. I got to see Elder Zapata again!! It was really awesome to see all the missionaries from the past zone. We didn’t get back until around 9 so it was another day of not meeting with anyone.

On Friday we were finally able to go visit a girl named Himena who is an investigator. Her mom is a member and so is her grandpa. We reviewed the first three lessons with her. Initially her baptism was set for sometime in later October but we moved it ahead to the 29^th of September. She only needs a few more days in church and we’ll be able to baptize her. Her mom and her grandpa are going to help us teach her the lessons so we can baptize her hopefully at the end of this month. We also went to go find another investigator named Elia (sp?). The first time we taught her was in the house of the Patriarch. The directions she gave us to her house were crazy though, but after two hours of searching we finally found her house and she wasn’t home. It was late by then so we had to come back to our casa. 

Saturday we did a service project in the morning. We went to help some inactive members break up the rocks in their driveway with a sledge hammer and bar. We had to walk about an hour to get to their house cause the only transportation that would take us there is a taxi and they would have charged us a lot. After we were done, we had scheduled to go eat lunch but they wanted us to eat lunch with them so we did. We were late but then we went to our other lunch appointment. The family we went and ate with are an older couple, but the sister kept telling us to eat and eat and eat and eat. Eat more tacos, soup, cookies and fruit. Oh my gosh I was gonna die, but it was really good. Then went to find the house of an investigator, she was supposed to be baptized the first week we were here, but she was sad the other elders left so she doesn’t really want to talk to us right now.

Anyway, we passed by the house to see if Jessica was home, she’s the investigator but we talked to Sochilt her sister and she is going to help us get in contact with her sister. She is also going to give us some references later in the week. She is a really cool girl and she is going to help us a lot this week. We keep inviting Jessica to come to church but she has to work, we are just having a hard time finding and getting in contact with her. Their mom is an investigator as well and we haven’t been able to visit with her at all since we’ve been here but Sochilt told us she is going to be in the house a lot this week so we are going to pass by and talk to her so we can hopefully baptize her if not this transfer then next transfer.

Sunday was a good day. We had ward council in the morning. The members are really supportive here and nice. After church we went and ate with some members then we went and contacted and were able to find one new investigator who we invited to baptism and a few more contacts so that was really good.

My spiritual thought this week is from my missionary calendar. It says this week is missionary work by example. “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” It's so important to be a positive example. We never know the impact our actions will have. We can always be an example to people and show them love as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and be their friends. We should always strive to do our best to be kinder people, not judge them and show people how we act in our religion and help them understand. I hope that makes sense. Speaking English is hard :).

I hope you have a great week. I love you so much!!

Having lunch at Carl's Jr. after getting our visas renewed.

I found this in the mission office. It shows the day I arrived
and right now my scheduled departure date.

Me and Elder Zapata from our baptismal goal celebration

Games from our celebration.

Elder Zapata brought me this tie that Vianey made for me

On the left, my new pillow (which is heavenly). On the right,
the pillow I've had for a year. 

Crazy first week in Jasso!

Buenas días mi familia. This week was really good. It was pretty crazy to start out with. On Tuesday when we had to leave, we went to the workshop of the familia Hernandez Velazquez, Victor came too, and we ate tacos before we left. I already told you but the whole morning on Tuesday I felt really bad, really terrible. Then when we got to the offices, Hermana Urrea said that President wanted to talk to me that’s when I knew that he was going to talk to me about grandma. It was good that we got to talk on the phone for a little bit.

After we talked, to get to my area we took a taxi to a bus station, then two buses to get to our area. That was pretty crazy with all the luggage that we had. I have three bags and my companion had two and a bunch of other stuff too. There is an elder here, Elder Correa, who is like a helper missionary, a service missionary. He helped us a lot this week with getting to know the area and showing us around. The members here have been very supportive as well.

On Tuesday when we got here we went to eat with the familia Hernando Cruz. We ate with them like 4 times last week, they are a super awesome family here. We also went and visited the patriarch who lives here and talked with him for a little bit then came back and visited another family who lives across the street from us. The family are not members, but they have a member son who is on a mission in Argentina. They are super awesome as well. Super friendly. Our casa is really small. It’s good for living temporarily but for the long term, it’s too small. We don’t have a washing machine so today, we are going to the family Hernando Cruz to wash our clothes.

Wednesday was a really crazy day. We had our district meeting in the morning. Our district leader is Elder Donkersgoed and he was my zone leader in Tepalcapa. He’s from Pleasant Grove. He’s super awesome, I love him. His companion is Elder Juarez. After the meeting we came back and visited with some other people. Later that night we were getting ready for bed and got a call from our neighbors across the street and they were like “Elders you need to evacuate right now!” They told us there was a gas leak, a pipe had burst. The smell was really strong here. A family invited us to go with them to another house that they have in our area that was out of the range of the smell, but we called our leaders and they told us we had to go to our district leader’s house. So our investigators took us to the district leader’s house. We were so quick to leave that we only grabbed our emergency kit, we didn’t grab any extra clothes. So in the morning, fortunately they had some extra clothes that we could borrow. 

Thursday we were planning to just do intercambios with our district leaders, but we got a call from a member here in the ward who said we could come back to the area. So after we got back to our area and changed, we did divisions. My companion and Elder Correa went to another area to do some visits. A member, his name is Levney (sp?), and I went to another part of the area and visited some less active and inactive families. We also went and talked with the bishop so I could introduce myself and see if the ward has any needs. It was really good. 

Friday and Saturday we walked a lot. It was really hot out, I was sweating a crap ton. It feels a lot more humid here than in Villa del Carbón. It’s not as deserty as I thought though. It’s actually pretty green here. There are buses and combis and taxis to travel around in the area that don’t cost a lot. Our area is pretty big. We do have a map of this area though (he never did get one in his last area). 

Saturday was September 1^st and it’s crazy that it’s already September. Time is flying by so fast, it’s unbelievable. Sunday was really good. In the morning we had a meeting with our ward mission leader, then we went to ward council. It was really good to talk with them and see the things we need to do to progress in this ward. We had sacrament meeting and I went up and bore my testimony. I first introduced myself then bore my testimony about eternal families. It was really quick cause I started to get emotional and I didn’t want to cry so I just shared my testimony quick and went and sat down. There’s a really awesome promise in D&C 62: 1-5, but I think it’s verse 3 how if we bear our testimonies, we can be forgiven of our sins. 

The last 20 minutes of Priesthood and Relief Society we talked about what we need to do if there is another gas leak. It’s not very common but we talked about what the ward needs to do if there is another emergency situation. This ward is really supportive, really united. In the evening we went to another part of our area and knocked on one door. A woman answered and as soon as we introduced ourselves as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she said, “come in, come in, let’s talk.” Her husband was watching a movie he didn’t really want to talk to us but we talked with her a bit. She’s a really nice lady. She wanted to know about being with her family after this life so we talked with her about the Plan of Salvation. It was a really awesome lesson! We invited her to be baptized at the end. She said she’s not interested in changing her religion but we could feel something different with her. She invited us to come back next Sunday. I feel like if we keep talking with them that we can baptize them. 

We spent a crap ton of money today shopping for food. The elders who lived here before left us nothing. During the week last week, we went and bought some eggs and bread and milk but that only lasted us a few days. Now we have food for a few weeks so we should be good.

Things are going good here. I love you so much and hope you have a great week and I hope you guys are doing good.

Elder Zapata and I

With Juan Hernandez

Vianey Hernandez Velazquez

Me and Victor

Another picture with Juan

Our apartment in Jasso

My new companion Elder Herrera

My desk area